05 September 2004
Sermon notes
“The Idolatry of Sexual Sin” 
Walking in True Love Pt. 3   
Eph.5:5    9-5-2004

3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person-such a man is an idolater-has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  

Proverbs 7 is a description of a foolish young man being seduced by an immoral woman. And the line she uses in v.18 is a great example of how the world thinks about sexuality and love:

Prov 7:18
Come, let's drink deep of love till morning; let's enjoy ourselves with love! 

What she’s really saying is, “Come, let’s drink deep of adultery until morning; let’s enjoy ourselves with perverse sexual immorality.” But in place of “adultery” and “sexual immorality” she puts the word “love.” The world was confused about that in ancient times, and they remain just as confused today. They do not know the difference between true love and sexual sin.
I spent a long time Monday morning just reading the lyrics of the most popular songs that are out right now. And the so-called “love” songs are all the same. The person singing is the one supposedly doing the loving, and yet the whole song is about himself. About the only time the object of the person’s love is referred to is when there is some reference to some kind of sexual immorality. Three words I never saw in any of them were, “wife” “husband” or “marriage.”  None of them were songs about giving – they were all about taking. None of them were about true love.  All were about selfish, greedy lust disguised as true love.
The world is completely blind to the difference between true love and selfish greed – and Satan has had huge success infecting the Church with that confusion. And so the Lord makes the distinction very, very clear to us in the first 4 vv. of Eph.5.  Vv.1,2 give the portrait of perfect love, and vv.3,4 the picture of what happens to love when it’s driven by greed. True love gives and purifies. Selfish greed takes and defiles. True love gives oneself up for another person as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Perverted love lets greed dominate, and the result is sexual immorality and all kinds of uncleanness and impurity, as well as flirtation and dirty language – obscene speech, moronic talk and dirty joking. So we see the night and day contrast between actual true love and what the world thinks is true love. 
Some of you who like the romantic comedies, or who like to listen to secular love songs might be thinking, “Not everything they say has to do with selfish taking. They talk sometimes about giving and sacrificing.” And I wouldn’t argue with that. Of course even in the counterfeit there are aspects of the genuine. That’s why people fall for it. But even where the world’s love most closely mirrors true, godly love, if you look closely enough even at that point the similarity is not as great as it first appears. Do people in the world make sacrifices and give to those they love?  Yes. But even that can be driven by greed. Did you know you can give out of greed? In 2 Cor.9 Paul is urging the people to send a large gift to Jerusalem.

2 Cor 9:5
So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to … finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given. 

The word translated grudgingly given is the same word translated greed in Eph.5:3. Paul’s point is, “I want you to give your generous gift, and I want to make sure you don’t give it out of greed. That may sound strange – is it possible to give a generous gift out of greed? Absolutely. It happens all the time. The greedy heart doesn’t want to be exposed, and so it will give to appear generous. There are a thousand reasons to give besides true love. The greedy heart isn’t dumb. It knows that in order to get what it wants very often it will have to give something to get it. The greedy heart of a husband is willing to cough up $20 for a dozen roses if he thinks it will get him what his greedy heart wants from his wife.
The greedy heart of a wife may be willing to offer physical relations to her husband if it will get her the affection that she wants. People give out of greed all the time. That’s why Jesus told us to give to the kinds of people who don’t have anything to give back. (Lk.14:12-14). It’s like that song I told you about last week: “When a man loves a woman he’ll spend his very last dime trying to hold on to what he needs…I give you everything I've got trying to hold on to your precious love.” 
Greed will give almost anything to get what it wants. And very often what it wants is the pleasure of sexual sin. So the confusion over the difference between love and greed has resulted in a tremendous problem with sexual immorality in the Church.

Why is the sexually immoral person automatically an idolater?

Now, as we saw in v.5, sexual sin is actually idolatry. We see the same thing in a parallel passage in 1 Cor.6. 
1 Cor 6:9-11 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders … will inherit the kingdom of God. 

Both passages make the same point: those who have given themselves over to sexual sin will not go to heaven. And in both cases, right in the midst of the list of the various kinds of sexual sin is the sin of idolatry. Why the connection between sexual sin and idolatry? Why is the sexually immoral person automatically an idolater?

The definition of idolatry:  misdirected desire 

To answer that question we need to define idolatry. And I want to spend our whole time just doing that this morning, because understanding idolatry is so crucial for understanding thanksgiving. So all we’re going to do this morning is define idolatry and define some of the elements of the definition. As a starting point we can say, Idolatry is the worship of a false god. The way they did that in OT times was by literally bowing down before a statue that represented the false god. But that’s not the only way to worship a false god. You can worship a false god without a statue.

Creation is the Only False god

In one sense we might say there are countless millions of different false gods that people worship. The Hindus alone claim they worship 33 million different gods. But in reality there is really only one false god. God only has one rival when it comes to worship, and it’s His own creation. When you boil it down, really there are only two options – worship the Creator or worship something or someone that He created. All idolatry is the worship of some created thing. So idolatry is the worship of the creation instead of the Creator. In fact, Paul puts it in those very terms in Ro.1:25. When he’s explaining why mankind is lost he says, in a nutshell, the reason the wrath of God is upon us, and it’s the reason we are doomed to eternal punishment unless we receive forgiveness is all because of our idolatry – our worship of the creation.

Ro.1:25 They…worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator

So idolatry is the worship of the created instead of the Creator. And so when Paul refers to the immoral, impure or greedy person and then says -such a man is an idolater, the point he’s making is that being a greedy person (sexually or in any other way) equals the worship of the creation. But someone might say, “Wait a minute. I commit those kinds of sins, but that doesn’t mean I worship those experiences or pleasures. I just enjoy them.” In what sense are sexual sin and greed idolatry?  If idolatry is offering to the creation that which belongs to God, in what sense does sexual sin and greed do that?

The definition of misdirected desire: Desire for the created instead of the Creator

God is the only legitimate object of desire

The answer is, God is to be the sole object of our desire. Not only does our worship rightfully belong to Him alone, and not only does our faith rightly belong in Him alone, but our desires are to be for Him alone. He is to be the sole object of our desires.

Ps 73:25-26 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 

You see, one element of worship is desire. My desire for God is one of the most essential aspects of worship. It is a statement of His supreme value and worth and desirability.  If I desire something I’m making a statement about the desirability of that thing. And so when I strongly desire God – that’s worship. What higher worship is there than making a heartfelt statement about the supreme worth and worthiness and desirability of God? When Jesus said the entire law is summed up in one single command, the obvious conclusion is that if we obey that one command, that’s all God requires of us. And that command is that we love God.

Matt 22:37-38 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'   38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 

All God wants from me is that I love Him. So sin is when I love something else instead. Greed says that God is not adequate as a satisfying treasure, I must have forbidden sex -- God will not suffice! 
Faith says, “No, regardless of the way things seem, I believe that God is the supreme treasure, and the greatest joy will come from delighting in Him.” So at the very core, idolatry really amounts to misdirected desire. There are a whole lot of different expressions of an idolatrous heart. You can express that sin by 
-	bowing before a statue, or 
-	by praying to a false god, or 
-	by committing sexual sin, or 
-	just by having greed in your heart
But in each case, the reason those things are wrong is because they all involve misdirected desire. They are desire for the created instead of the Creator.

How do you enjoy creation without committing idolatry? 

Now that brings up a very tricky question. Does that mean it’s wrong for us to enjoy the creation? Of course not.

1 Tim 6:17 says that God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

We are supposed to enjoy the creation. Is it always a mark of greed to strongly desire things and circumstances on earth? No. Jesus strongly desired things and circumstances on this earth.  In fact, in Lk.22:15 the word used to describe Jesus’ desire is the word that is normally translated “lust” or “covetousness.” So the very important question is, When is a strong desire for earthly things or circumstances godly, and Christlike, and when does it turn to greed and idolatry?
If I really, really enjoy a cheeseburger at Chili’s, how can I tell if I’m pleasing God by enjoying His creation, or indulging a greedy, idolatrous heart? How can I be an enjoyer of creation without being a worshipper of the creation? Most people would try to answer that question by saying, “It’s legitimate enjoyment as long as it’s in moderation. But once you start to get obsessive about it, it’s worship.” Or they will say, “As long as your desires for things or circumstances are kept in moderation, they are fine. But if your desires become too strong, then it’s greed.”  That is not a biblical answer. Our desires do not become sinful just because they reach a certain strength or a certain level of intensity.
Do we really think God wants us to have a tepid, half-hearted enjoyment of His good gifts? “Oh thanks God. You gave me this gift – I guess I like it a little bit.” Is that how you want people to respond to your gifts? 
I would suggest that our whole problem isn’t that our desires are too strong, but that they are too weak. Our desires for the good are much too weak, and our goal should be to strengthen and intensify them. One of the main evidences of our sin is that we are unmoved by that which God says is eternally glorious.  You cannot have desires for the good that are too strong. So then what is the answer? If not intensity, what is it that makes desire turn to greed and enjoyment of the creation turn to worship of the creation? How can I have a strong desire without having greed? How can I enjoy the creation without being an idolater? I think Asaph knew the answer to that question.
Read Ps 73:25-26
We sing that in our songs, and we wish that were true of us, but is that even possible? To desire nothing on earth? To have no desire at all but God? I read Ps.73 and I want to say, “Do you mean to tell me you don’t have any desire at all for the joys of human friendship or the pleasures of marriage?” You’re telling me you don’t enjoy a nice lamb chop when you’re really hungry? Is Asaph lying in that psalm? No. He’s telling the truth. The point isn’t that he doesn’t enjoy anything on earth; his point is that his enjoyment of things on earth is an enjoyment of God. And his desire for things and circumstances on earth are really desire for God. That’s what he means when he says God is his portion. When God told the Levites they would get no inheritance and no portion of the Promised Land, but that they were to serve as priests and that God would be their portion, that didn’t mean they would have no place to live and that they would never eat anything. It meant they would have no apparent source for those things other than God. “God is my portion” doesn’t mean I don’t get any earthly things.  It means God is the only Source of the earthly things I get. So the answer to our question (“How can I be an enjoyer of the creation without being a worshipper of the creation?”) is this: If I enjoy the creation as part of my enjoyment of God, that’s true worship, and it’s pleasing to God. But if I enjoy the creation instead of enjoying God, that’s idolatry.

Definition of Enjoying God: exchanging love 

What does it mean to enjoy God?

The concept of enjoying God may strike you at first as meaningless religious jargon. What does it mean to enjoy God? I can’t see Him or touch Him or feel Him or hear Him.  Enjoying God may sound like a wonderful religious idea, but in practical terms what does that even mean? It must mean something, because Scripture speaks of it often, and God never uses meaningless religious jargon. He doesn’t do religio-babble.  And yet Scripture is constantly talking about enjoying God.

Ps 104:34 I rejoice in the LORD. 
Isa 58:14 you will find your joy in the LORD,
Phil 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
That’s one of a dozen passages that command us to rejoice in the Lord.
1 Peter 1:7-8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; … are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy
Ps 71:23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you
 Ps 37:4 is a direct command to enjoy God:
Delight yourself in the LORD 
Job 27:10 speaks of taking delight in the Almighty 
Ps 43:4 I wil go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.
Isa 61:10 I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God.
Hab 3:18 I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. 
Ps 16:11 you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. 
Rom 5:10-11 if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God 

If you don’t think there is an emotional component to loving God, think again. We are not just commanded to serve God. We are commanded to enjoy Him. What does that mean? Just think about what it means to enjoy a person. You enjoy a person by exchanging love with that person. Think about the way people who love each other give and receive gifts. Depending upon what’s in everyone’s heart, Christmas morning can be a greed fest, or a time of wonderful and profound communion and mutual love.
The giving of a gift, ideally, should be an exchange of love. If I love you and you love me, and I give you a gift that is a true expression of my love, you receive not just a gift, but love.  And your response is to love me back. And that love is expressed through gratitude. (Keep that in mind. I really wanted to talk about gratitude this morning, but mostly that’s going to have to wait until next Sunday.) For now, just keep in mind the fact that the ideal is that the giving of a gift is the person saying, “I love you.” And whatever your expression of gratitude, the meaning of that expression is, “I love you too.” So if I buy my son a baseball mitt or something, that’s me saying, “I love you Josiah.” And if he runs up and gives me a big hug that’s him saying, “I love you too dad.” So the ideal is I give you love expressed in the form of a gift, and you respond by giving me love in the form of gratitude. Now, I could give you a gift for a million other reasons, and you could respond in a million other ways. But the ideal is for the giving of the gift to simply be an occasion for the exchange of gestures of love. When you really love someone, you do that every day. You bring each other joy just by delighting in what you each have to offer. If we are close friends and you take delight in my companionship and my conversation, I enjoy the fact that you enjoy me. But, on the other hand, if you enjoy what I have while leaving me out, that’s the opposite of love. If you want to come enjoy my house, and my car and my possessions, and the gifts I can give you, but you don’t want me to be involved in your enjoyment of those things, that’s not love.
Idolatry is when we do that to God. It’s when we enjoy God’s creation while leaving God out. It’s when we enjoy His creation with our back to Him. He gives us the baseball mitt, and our whole focus is on the mitt and there is no reciprocal response of love back to Him. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be happy about the mitt. He wants us to be thrilled with His gifts. If our delight in the creation is a delight in the gift because of the Giver, that is true worship. But if it is a delight in the gift instead of the Giver, not only is that idolatry, James 4 tells us that kind of greed amounts to spiritual adultery – unfaithfulness to God.  (We see that throughout the OT. The prophets told the people that their idolatry was spiritual adultery.)

Read James 4:3-4
The word spend is the same word used in the story of the Prodigal Son to describe the squandering of his father’s money. If we pray for something with the intention of squandering it, God won’t give it to us. Do you realize how priceless every gift from the Father is? If I ask anyone else for $100 and they give it to me, all it is is $100. But if I ask God for $100 and God, the Almighty, infinitely wise, supreme majesty of heaven, gives me $100, do you realize how absolutely priceless that is? If He saw fit to give it to me, that gift obviously has eternal importance. God doesn’t waste time with trifles.  Everything He does is, by definition, infinitely and eternally important. And so when a gift comes from Him it is valuable beyond measure, it has massive potential to profit His kingdom and bring Him glory if used properly, and it must be deeply treasured and carefully used for His purposes.
And so if God knows, when I’m praying for something, that I have no intention of doing any of that, if He knows that I’m not going to take it seriously in relationship to building His kingdom or bringing Him glory, and He knows I’m not even going to use it as an occasion to become closer to Him relationally. If He knows I won’t interpret it as a gesture of love from Him, and I will not respond with greater love for Him. If He knows that I really have no purpose for asking beyond just squandering the gift on my temporary pleasures without reference to Him. If He knows I am asking as the Prodigal Son – so I can take His gift, turn my back to Him and go off and focus on myself, then He isn’t going to grant that request.
James calls them adulterers because when we spend what we get from God on our lusts, we are committing adultery with the world. You see, the real problem isn’t that I’m enjoying something. It’s who I’m enjoying it with. If you commit adultery, the problem isn’t that you had sex. It’s who you had sex with. The solution isn’t to stop having sex. It’s to do that exclusively with your spouse. God wants you to enjoy His gifts. He wants you to pray for the things you desire, so that He can grant them, so that you can have joy. When Jesus taught about prayer He said Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. 
(John 16:24) He wants us to ask for what we want, and to enjoy what we get. But it must be a joy in God and not an indulging of greed with a focus on ourselves. There is a massive difference. One is true worship and the other is idolatry.

Praying For Adultery 

And James’ point is that there are a lot of our prayers that don’t get answered because what motivates the prayer is idolatry. You ask for gifts from God in order that you can enjoy those gifts instead of God. That’s spiritual adultery.  When we pray like that, it’s like a wife coming to her husband and saying, “Will you please buy me a car so I can drive to my boyfriend’s house to commit adultery?” Or a man saying, “Dear wife, will you please give me money so I can afford to go hire a prostitute?” So many of our prayers are nothing but us asking God to provide us with the means of committing adultery against Him. We would do well, whenever we ask for anything in prayer, to attach the word “because” on the end. “Lord, please grant this request, because…If we can’t honestly say, “Lord I’m asking for this out of love for You,” then we are better off not to ask. But if you can honestly say that, then ask wholeheartedly, and when He grants the request, see that as a gift from Him and enjoy it with all your might. One of the main purposes of prayer is for us to have joy – joy in God.

Interpret God’s Gifts

C.S. Lewis makes a very interesting point along this line. He points out that when we experience something, there is a message intertwined in the experience. For example, when I hear chirping, the message that is connected to that is that there is a bird. I can't just hear the chirping without automatically getting the message as well. The sound and the message are intertwined. The same is true for word printed on a page.   If I see the word “fire” printed on a paper, I can't help getting both the visual image of 4 black lines on a white background, and the concept of heat and light and combustion. The meaning, or the message, (the concept of actual fire) is connected and intertwined with the letters on the paper. Lewis: “The reading is as involuntary as to seeing. When the wind roars I don't just hear the roar; I hear the wind.” Getting the message that it’s wind is part of the hearing. Then Lewis goes on to say that we need to get the message attached to God’s gifts. When it comes to earthly pleasures, we shouldn’t just experience them – we should read them. We should interpret the pleasures of life as God’s gifts. 
In order for us to enjoy God, the reading of the meaning behind that pleasure must become just as automatic as the experience itself. That goes for each of the thousands of pleasures God gives you every single day. And the meaning of each one of those is that it is an expression of love from God to you. The sense of being loved by God should be so intertwined with the experience - that receiving that message is automatic when the pleasure is experienced. So the enjoyment of the pleasure and the recognition of God as the source are a single experience.  In the words of Lewis: "This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows.  It is a message.  We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures forevermore.  There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards.  To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.” (A theophany is an appearance of God on earth). That’s a great statement. 
What he’s saying is that every pleasure you ever experience is a tiny theophany. And so adoring God should not be a separate event, but we should get to the point where the enjoyment of the pleasure and the adoration of God are a single event.
Idolatry is when I manage to split those apart, and enjoy the experience while ignoring the meaning. And I commit idolatry by focusing on the symbol of God’s love while ignoring the love itself. If you have a long-distance relationship, and the one who loves you is overseas sending you letters, is it a bad thing if your heart leaps for joy when you hear the sound of the approaching mail truck?
It depends. If, when you see the mailman coming, your heart leaps for joy because you are in love with the mailman, that is unfaithfulness, and will cause deep sorrow and jealously in the one who sent the letters. But if he learns that your heart leaps for joy when you see the mailman – not because you care anything about the mailman, but because you see him as the bearer of a message from your true love – that will bring joy to the heart of the one who sent the letters. If I send Tracy a letter and she runs up and gives the mailman a big hug because she is so thrilled to get a letter from me, that makes me happy. But if she doesn’t even care about the letter or notice it, but runs up and gives him a hug because of interest in him, that makes me sad. You see, it’s not a difference in the degree of her excitement that is the issue.  The more excited she is to see the mailman the better – as long as it’s an excitement over me and not over him. 
If everything I get excited about and enjoy in life I get excited about and enjoy because I see it as coming from God and my enjoyment of it and my desire for it are simply an expression of my enjoyment of and desire for Him, then I can honestly say with Asaph, earth has nothing I desire besides you. Do you see how this affects every moment of your life? It’s what gives meaning to life. Most people gage the meaning of their life by what they contribute. Everybody wants to “make a difference.”  People talk so much about the importance of making a difference; you would think there were 20 chapters in the Bible devoted to that. I’m not sure there are any. I take some satisfaction in what the Lord allows me to do in His Kingdom, but to be honest, what gives my life meaning day to day is not a sense of making a difference. Difference from what? Make a difference from what God could otherwise do without my help? No matter how good I am, at any moment, without any effort at all God could eliminate me and replace me with someone 10 times better. All the good that God accomplishes through me He could just as easily accomplish through a doorknob.  He can do anything. My joy is not in some fantasy that I’m supplying God with some help that He needs – He enables everything I do. My joy – the thing that gives the successive moments of my life meaning, is the moment-by-moment exchange of love with God. The joy of my life comes when I walk down to get the mail and see a beautiful tree, and I think about all the thought God put into the unbelievable design of all that is in that tree, and the fact that He arraigned for it to be right in this spot, and He arraigned for me to be right at this spot at this moment, and I look up to heaven and say, “I love you too Dad.”  And I feel a gentle breeze and I say, “I love you too Father.” If I preach a sermon that helps someone, my joy is not over the fact that I accomplished something great. It’s over the fact that God gave me that gift – the gift of being a tool in His great hand for that moment, and I look up to heaven and say, “I love you too God.” Have you ever said “I love you” to someone and they didn’t respond? God gets right in your face 1000 times a day and says, “I love you” with some wonderful gift. And all the life of gratitude is – all true worship is - is you living a life that says, “I love you too God.”
How can you tell if you’re doing that? How to know if your enjoyment of God’s gifts is greed or if it’s enjoyment of God? One way to tell is by paying attention to what you do to fulfill your desires, and how you order your priorities. Jesus prayed, “Father let this cup pass from me, nevertheless Your will, not mine, be done.” (Mt.26:39). What He was saying is, “Father this is my desire, but I desire Your plan more than my pleasure.” If I can have the pleasure inside the boundaries of Your plan, wonderful! Please grant that. However if this particular pleasure cannot fit anywhere inside the perimeter of Your plan, I want nothing to do with it. The greatest craving of my heart is to live inside the boarders of Your will. I want that more than I want anything. So, if I seek to fulfill a desire with my back to God, I know that desire is not an offshoot of desiring God.  My enjoyment of that thing is not part of my enjoyment of God, and so it’s idolatry.
And any time I seek something or enjoy something in a way that I know for sure is outside the borders of His will, then I know I’ve slipped into idolatry.
When I was in high school I went to a friend’s house once and on his wall as a picture of a topless woman from a magazine.I asked him about it, and he said, “I’m just enjoying God’s creation. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying God’s creation.” It’s true there is nothing wrong with enjoying God’s creation if I enjoy it as an expression of my enjoyment of God. But if I enjoy it in a way that He has forbidden, then obviously it’s not an expression of my enjoyment of Him. If it’s outside the boundaries of God’s will, I know for sure it’s not an expression of my enjoyment of God. If Jesus said it’s sin to decide to look lustfully at a woman, and Pr.5 makes it clear that 100% of a person’s sexual satisfaction should come from the breasts of his wife only, then if I try to enjoy God’s creation outside the bounds of those parameters I have become an idolater. If I enjoy a cheeseburger and fries at Chili’s, or a vacation with my family (things that are not expressly forbidden in themselves) it’s possible that I’m an idolater, depending on what is in my heart, but if I enjoy some thing that is explicitly stated to be sin – it’s for sure that I’m an idolater. And the things listed in Eph.5:3-5 (fornication, adultery, impurity, greed, obscene speech, dirty jokes) – all that is clearly sin, and so enjoyment of it is clearly idolatry. But let’s go back to the cheeseburger. There is no Bible verse that says that’s a sin. So how do I know if my enjoyment of that is idolatry or worship of God? Let me give you two tests. 
1. The boundaries of God’s will. Again, it goes back to Jesus’ prayer in the garden. I can desire that burger as much as I want, as long as God’s plan remains a more powerful and compelling desire in my heart. If I know God’s desire for me is to spend this $7 in another way, and I spend it on the burger, I know I desire the burger more than God’s will. So it’s idolatry.  If I know God’s desire for me today is to lose weight, and I’ve already eaten plenty of calories, then getting the burger is a sign that I desire the burger more than God’s will. If all I have is an hour, and I know God would have me spend that hour doing something else, but I choose instead to sit at Chili’s enjoying my burger, I know I desire the burger more than I desire God. So the first test is whether you are more committed to the pleasure or to the will of God.
2. The second test is the gratitude test. Even if there is no conflict with God’s will that I know of, if my enjoyment of the burger excludes God and ignores His love, that enjoyment is misdirected and it’s idolatry. But if I recognize the burger as a love gift from God, and there is genuine gratitude in my heart. (Not just a vague, generalized gratitude – “I’m thankful I have something to eat” – but a gratitude that is part of a love exchange with God). Then eating the burger becomes pleasing, acceptable worship and a true delight in God. I take a bite of the big, thick, juicy burger, and it tastes so good, and I just say, “Mmmmm – I love you too God.” That’s why 1 Tim.4:4 says 

everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. 

The prayer of thanks consecrates the burger (actually makes it holy). The moment I recognize something as a love gift from someone I love, that thing becomes set apart from everything else. All the other food sitting on the plates of all the other people in the restaurant is just nothing but piles of calories. But this particular burger sitting in front of me, and my thankful enjoyment of it, are all part of an interchange of love between me and my Father in heaven in which I am taking delight in Him. Next week we will look in detail at the various components of true gratitude, and then study how to develop it in your life.

Benediction: Isa.43:1-4  But now, this is what the LORD says-- he who created you…he who formed you: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. 3 For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… 4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you